Sexual health care of HIV-positive patients: an audit of a local service

Abstract

The sexual health care of 175 HIV-positive patients attending the two HIV clinics at Barts and the London NHS Trust was audited for the first time. The audit standard was that 100% of patients should be in receipt of a sexual health screen within six months of their first HIV out-patient appointment. Overall, 44.5% of patients had a sexual health screen, of which 46 (60.5%) were diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection. Those screened were younger than those who were not. Five factors were identified which were significantly associated with not having a genitourinary screen performed; site of HIV care, setting of HIV diagnosis, stage of HIV disease, specialty of HIV physician and whether a screen was recommended by the HIV physician. A number of recommendations have been implemented to improve the uptake of sexual health screening amongst HIV-positive patients.